Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

SuperDuper on Ext HD & USB-2 FAILURE

lugesm

lugesm

macrumors 6502a
Original poster
Sep 7, 2007
572
9
Downloaded SuperDuper and backed my primary hard drive up to an external Seagate HD connected with USB-2. Everything seemed to work fine as the entire contents of my primary HD in the iMac were transferred and the external HD was set up as a bootable drive by SuperDuper.

Everything looked good until I tried to boot from the Seagate external HD. I held down "OPTION" and pressed the power button on the iMac. A small window came up and asked which drive I wanted to boot from. I selected the Seagate and the system started. It got as far as the gray apple in the center of the screen and the little rotating-spoke wheel underneath and continued in that mode for 30 minutes.

Finally I shot the iMac down and rebooted from the primary HD. That all worked as expected.

I am guessing that USB-2 just has a problem as an interface for bootable drives ? ? ? ?

Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I have a macbook and prior to upgrading to Leopard I did create a bootable image of my tiger setup in an external USB2 HD, then I was successfully able to boot from that drive. In my case I used Carbon Copy Cloner, haven't tried SuperDupper. Probably your clone copy got corrupted.

Now, I know that in the case of macbooks can be booted either with USB2 or Firewire drives, but for iBooks & PowerBooks you need a firewire drive to boot, not sure if the same applies to iMacs
 
My understanding is that with all PPC macs you have to use firewire, and cannot use usb to boot up from (i.e. all G3, G4 and G5). Starting with Intel macs, you can use usb to boot from. Judging by your signature, you have an Intel mac. Be aware, that if you are on Leopard, last I heard SuperDuper does not work with Leopard as yet (though they are working on it).

For future reference, when you ask a question, always include all the relevant specs, the exact hardware and software version you are asking about - it can make a HUGE difference, and people don't have to guess or give you wrong advice.
 
QUOTE: "For future reference, when you ask a question, always include all the relevant specs, the exact hardware and software version you are asking about - it can make a HUGE difference, and people don't have to guess or give you wrong advice."

You are quite correct; I should have given more detail.

I am using the Aluminum 24" Intel iMac (Core 2 Duo @ 2.4GHz). Also, I am running Leopard 10.5.1. Not sure which version of SuperDuper I am using, but I just downloaded it from their web site yesterday; so I assume it is the latest.

I was not aware that SuperDuper did not work with Leopard. Thanks for the information. I'll try and erase my external USB2 HD and wait until the Leopard compatible version is available.

Regards,
L
 
No harm done - Leopard is new, and a lot of Leopard itself is not working very well, so it's hardly surprising that third party apps don't always work perfectly either... at least SuperDuper is up front about this... on their front page:

"Leopard Infomation
SuperDuper! 2.1.4 is not yet fully Leopard compatible. But we're working hard to get it done as soon as we can.

(Reasonably) frequent updates are being posted at the Shirt Pocket Watch blog, so stop on by!"

http://www.shirt-pocket.com/SuperDuper/SuperDuperDescription.html

There's a handy list on macrumors which tries to keep track of which apps work and which don't yet with Leopard:

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/373263/

the list is scary long :)
 
lugesm said:
QUOTE: "For future reference, when you ask a question, always include all the relevant specs, the exact hardware and software version you are asking about - it can make a HUGE difference, and people don't have to guess or give you wrong advice."

You are quite correct; I should have given more detail.

I am using the Aluminum 24" Intel iMac (Core 2 Duo @ 2.4GHz). Also, I am running Leopard 10.5.1. Not sure which version of SuperDuper I am using, but I just downloaded it from their web site yesterday; so I assume it is the latest.

I was not aware that SuperDuper did not work with Leopard. Thanks for the information. I'll try and erase my external USB2 HD and wait until the Leopard compatible version is available.

Regards,
L
Click to expand...

Or you can give Carbon Copy Cloner a try, is a free app that is Leopard compatible :apple:
 
lugesm said:
I am new to Mac (15+ years with Windows), but this sounds more like a Windows OS release.
Click to expand...

In some ways it's worse. Because the installed base of OS X users is (obviously) much smaller, developers will often simply abandon users on older versions of the OS - even the very previous one. So, there are many updates to apps which will be Leopard-only, leaving their Tiger users stranded... if you want the new version, you gotta go Leopard. Now, I don't blame the developers, because it's hard to develop for more than one version of the OS, but the real problem is that it doesn't make economic sense for them - in windows, it makes sense to maintain compatibility with XP, because there are just so many XP users. There are so many more XP users than Tiger users, so it may pay to keep the XP customers, while it may not pay to keep the fewer Tiger ones.

In general, there are pluses and minuses to both platforms, but OS X simply can't come close to having as rich an eco-system of developers as Windows does. I've been on a mac now for 2 years, and I'm still shocked by how few choices there are for many apps in OS X, where there are dozens and dozens of choices in Win (and don't let the macheads convince you that the quality of OS X apps is better - sometimes it is, but very often it is not and the Win versions are vastly superior).
 
OldCorpse said:
In general, there are pluses and minuses to both platforms, but OS X simply can't come close to having as rich an eco-system of developers as Windows does. I've been on a mac now for 2 years, and I'm still shocked by how few choices there are for many apps in OS X, where there are dozens and dozens of choices in Win (and don't let the macheads convince you that the quality of OS X apps is better - sometimes it is, but very often it is not and the Win versions are vastly superior).
Click to expand...

I have been on the iMac since September of last year, and my conclusions are precisely the same. A good example of the gulf between Windows and Mac applications is Quicken. The current version of Quicken Mac is seriously inferior to the Windows version I was using. I have come to understand that software developers will ALWAYS apply their best resources to the larger Windows market. You are correct; it all boils down to economics.

Some would say that we should run Parallels, Fusion, and/or Boot Camp to have the best of both worlds. My view is somewhat different. If I wanted a Windows machine, I could have found a much cheaper hardware solution than this $2,000 iMac.

Having written all that, I am reasonably satisfied with the iMac; and it is not likely that I will return to Windows.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back